Listen up! Invasion of cicadas coming

Pest experts: Breakout of winged insects little more than a noisy, nasty nuisance

Apr. 7, 2013

NJ PRESS MEDIA FILE PHOTO

- -A handful of discarded Cicada skins are seen after a 17-year nap in 2003. / File photo

TO CATCH THE BUZZ

Cicada Detector Maker Night, hosted by WNYC radio and Radiolab WHEN: 7:30-10:30 p.m. Monday WHERE: Brooklyn Brewery, 79 N. 11th St., Brooklyn MORE INFO: The event is free, but reservations are required. To make a reservation, go online to https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9771356. WHEN: Noon-3 p.m. April 14 WHERE: New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111th St., Queens MORE INFO: The event is free with general admission, but space is limited. To learn more go online to http://www.nysci.org/visit/1428642/admissions.

A female cicada lays eggs on a tree branch in this undated handout photo from the University of Illinois. / File photo

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They’re big. They’re ugly. They’re noisy. And they’re coming.

So get ready.

The blockbuster brood of the periodical cicada, large insects that emerge en masse from the ground in 17-year intervals across the northeast, is on its way — and New York City’s largest public radio station is encouraging residents in Central Jersey and beyond to help track the invasion.

“The whole idea came from our news director, Jim (Schachter, of Summit), who lives in New Jersey — he promised his wife that they would move from their home before the 17-year cicadas came back,” WNYC Senior Editor for Data News John Keefe explained last week. “He didn’t move in time.”

The coming bug storm shouldn’t prompt fear, according to experts, but loathing? Definitely. Like clockwork, following 17 years living underground and feeding off of fluid that gathers near the roots of plants, they climb out of the earth when soil temperatures reach 64 degrees.

That being the case, the steady advance of what entomologists call “Brood II” (Roman numerals are used to differentiate between the various broods) will occur from south to north as temperatures gradually warm this spring. Schachter’s idea, being put into motion by the staff at WNYC (820 AM, 93.9 FM), simply involves keeping a close eye on those temperatures. On a subsection of the station’s website, http://project.wnyc.org/cicadas, anyone can look up a list of easily accessible electronic components and a how-to guide explaining how to assemble a simple soil thermometer — and an interactive map on the Web page shows all the devices in the ground already.

When temperatures warm, the tiny dots indicating the presence of those devices change color, from blue to yellow to orange to red. Once they’re red (sorry, Reston, Va, which was the lone red dot out of nearly 30 as of late last week) it means that the cicadas’ arrival is imminent.

“It used to be in the realm of only scientists or (experts) who could build a sensor like this,” Keefe said. “Now, anyone can build it.”

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WNYC and its partner in the Cicada Tracker project, the Radiolab program, even are hosting a pair of events where science enthusiasts, gardeners and anyone else interested in participating are being invited to assemble their own devices free of charge (the first is 7:30 p.m. Monday at Brooklyn Brewery, the second noon on April 14 at the New York Hall of Science in Queens).

“We’re kind of excited about how this whole thing has become such a community project,” Keefe said, noting that the radio station’s first true crowd-sourcing project involved asking listeners to report prices of milk, beer and a head of lettuce in New York City’s various bodegas.

Cicada war stories

WNYC broadcasters have started talking about the project on the air, and Keefe added that some callers are sharing anecdotes about past Brood II appearances in 1996 and 1979. The tales don’t sound pretty — we’re talking swarms of bugs making outdoor events miserable, roadways covered with dead cicadas, and enough bodies collecting on grassy surfaces to collect into piles using a rake.

“New Jersey is kind of in the heart of it, too,” Keefe said, noting that the emergence is expected to occur just about everywhere from Virginia to Connecticut. “They’ll be loud, and all over the place. They come out in the millions.”

Millions? Ha. Experts say areas hit hardest by the cicada swarms could see as many as a billion bugs per square mile. That’s about 36 bugs per square foot. Or one for every four square inches.

The good news is that cicadas are pretty much harmless, according to Jeffrey White, technical director at the Lawrenceville-based Cooper Pest Solutions, which operates throughout most of Central Jersey.

“Cicadas are exterior pests,” White said. “And there’s not a lot the pest industry can do.”

Still, White confirmed that outdoor areas can see some “pretty significant numbers” indeed, and male cicadas trying to attract a female mate emit a deafening chorus that can reach 90 decibels — as loud as a lawnmower.

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Multiply that by half a billion in any given square mile, and it can border on maddening.

“It’s definitely a nuisance, not only from the noise they create, but also just the presence of the insects themselves,” White said. “Passively, they may enter homes through open doors and open windows. They’re pretty big and can just fly around and be pretty intimidating.”

They aren't pretty

The largest cicadas have red eyes, translucent wings and wingspans that can measure up to three inches. They are close cousins of katydids and crickets, even though they don’t closely resemble either one.

But White said getting them out of a home is easy — they’ve got small gripping appendages on their feet that can be a little sharp, but they don’t bite or sting.

And while they can spend 17 years feeding underground, they only live about two to four weeks above ground, according to Dan Mozgai of Metuchen, the founder of www.cicadamania.com — a comprehensive website where visitors can listen to audio of cicadas, watch video of cicadas, view images of cicadas and essentially learn everything there is to know about the bugs.

Ecologically speaking, the insects actually serve a valuable purpose: cicadas aid host trees and plants by aerating the soil when they emerge, as well as by trimming weaker branches when they lay their eggs, experts say.

“They also form a vital link in the food chain between trees and literally hundreds of carnivores and omnivores,” Mozgai writes on his website.

One of those omnivores being some particularly fearless humans.

“Whether they’re curious or doing it for the shock value, people are eating cicadas,” Mozgai said. “Asian peoples have eaten cicadas for centuries, and there are records of Native Americans eating cicadas. I’ve heard they taste like asparagus, popcorn, minty shrimp, and piney shrimp.”

The best estimates of experts is that the cicada swarm will start emerging in New Jersey sometime in mid- to late May, or even early June — just in time for them to plague the many outdoor weddings commonly conducted around that time.

But the good news is we won’t see this kind of invasion again until 2030.